


time to get up (in the morning)

by zadonis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Falling In Love, M/M, Pining, based off of 18, i suck at tags on here, please just come check it out, sophia smith - mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:56:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zadonis/pseuds/zadonis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>liam and zayn have a history four years in the making, but their real story began a year after they met, one early winter morning and it continues to this day (based of the song from the A Year In the Making documentary and also based off of 18)</p>
            </blockquote>





	time to get up (in the morning)

He was warm and comfortable, wrapped in a jacket and the soft, heavy duvet over his body, and Harry’s warm body was just a few inches behind him. As soon as he heard the guitar begin to play, Zayn wanted nothing more than to turn around and punch Niall in the balls. And then he started singing.

It sounded like they were on the other side of the bed, bothering Harry, so Zayn was happy to continue sleeping with his eyes tightly closed as if they weren’t even there. Liam and Louis started singing too, poking and prodding Harry probably and Zayn just snuggled into his pillow, hoping they’d go away in a moment.

But they didn’t. Instead the music and the singing got louder and _someone started jumping on the bed._ Usually Zayn wasn’t an advocate for murder, but Harry had kept him up late the night before whispering drunken secrets to him, and it had only been a few hours since he’d finally been able to fall asleep. It would be very much appreciated if they would fuck off and let him resume his peaceful sleep. But no; in this band there is no such thing as a moment of peace when either Louis or Niall is involved.

Sleepily, Zayn turned his head and blinked his eyes open to see Liam shirtless and bouncing on the bed, his curls flopping ridiculously with each movement. When the younger boy grinned down at him, Zayn rolled his eyes and turned back over, closing his eyes and folding his arms to keep the blankets pinned to his chest.

Liam finally climbed off the bed, but the singing continued and now Harry was fidgeting, one of his legs kicked out, nudging Zayn’s.

“Zayn!” Just like that all of their attention turned to him and one of the idiots that he called bandmates was tugging on his arm and it couldn’t be Niall because the guitar music was continuing and getting louder like he was rounding the foot of the bed.

Speaking of feet, one of Liam’s landed right beside his head, catching him off guard so he rolled away even as Louis continued tugging on his arm. “Fuck off!” He groaned, loud enough that the camera in the corner of the room could hear it. Just then, Liam lost his balance and tumbled into the space between him and Harry, the younger boy’s knee pressing painfully into Zayn’s back.

“Get off my –“ Zayn kicked out, connecting with what could’ve been any part of Liam’s body, but was probably his bum. The weight and heat rolled away only slightly, the singing continued, but it had finally tapered back down to the quiet singing that wasn’t so annoying. The cold air in the room was suddenly washing over his legs, so Zayn reached back, fingers searching blindly for the duvet cover, but instead his found Liam’s warm thigh and silky shorts. The duvet was right next to him, so Zayn tugged until a small portion of it was free and he could drape it over his legs.

Niall’s voice and the incessant guitar strumming was right beside his head, still too loud for Zayn to ignore. Through the crack in his eyelids, Zayn saw the younger boy’s crotch just an arm’s length away; a playful punch to the balls seemed in order. Niall barely even noticed what turned out to be a light brush against the material of his sweatpants, and Zayn drew his arm back against his chest.

“Waaaaaakeeee uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuppppppppppppp!” Liam sang in a high note that cut straight through the last string of dreaminess that held Zayn to sleep.

“Time to get up!” Harry jolted up in bed and happily added to end the song. The three boys who’d been singing laughed and cheered and finally rolled off the bed.

By the time that Zayn reopened his eyes, Louis was dancing out the door, Niall was following him, and Harry had rolled out of his side of the bed and was searching the floor for his clothes. The camera man was pressing the button to shut off the camera, and Liam was still standing at the foot of the bed, arms flexing as they crossed his bare chest, and his gaze nailed Zayn to the spot.

The older of the two sighed and blinked with heavy eyelids, letting them close briefly. Off to his right, he heard Harry mumble something and Liam answered in a low voice with words that were hard to pick out. There was a thump and a rustling sound of clothing against skin and then the door closed softly.

At last, he was alone.

The other side of the bed sunk down and Zayn groaned, rolling over to face the crinkly eyed Liam.

One quick glance around the room revealed that they were alone with no camera man, no Harry, no Louis, no Niall. Just Zayn and Liam which was something that hadn’t been in a while. Well, since at least the previous morning when they’d arrived at the house.

“Hey, sleepyhead.” Liam’s deep voice was too happy for this early in the morning and it was too cold out for him to only be wearing that pair of basketball shorts. “Are you going to get out of bed?”

Zayn pulled the warm blankets higher up until they were tucked under his chin. “No, Leeyum. I’m tired; I can’t be Superman like you are.” He blinked across the expanse of white sheets to the contrasting tan of Liam’s torso. Liam laughed and rolled over onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. “Leeyum, it’s cold, get under the blankets.”

It was really bothering him how Liam didn’t seem to notice the chill permeating the air. Or maybe it was actually Liam’s muscles that were bothering him. Either way, he yanked at the edge of the duvet until Liam crawled under them, his oddly ovenlike body heat wrapped around Zayn even under the blankets. He scooted closer to the older boy until Liam had no choice but to wrap his arms around Zayn and snuggle his warm nose into the still sleepy boy’s neck.

“We went to McDonalds.” Liam told him, his words brushing warmly over Zayn’s throat. “Lou wanted to order half the menu to bring back here, and then he ran off to that stupid playground that you and I nearly got stuck in that one time – do you remember? - and I sent Niall in after him while I paid for the food. That was a mistake. It took me five minutes to get them out and there was a mother of two sitting in there and she was looking at us like we were crazy. And then on the way back, Niall wanted to drive and I told Louis that if he let him do that that we would probably die, so luckily he didn’t let him do that. Also, Lou forced us to listen to Christmas music even though the holiday ended last Saturday. It’s been six days! There shouldn’t be any more Christmas music to listen to!”

He continued rambling on and on, and Zayn just let it happen because it was going to be his New Year’s resolution to listen to everything that the  boy’s had to say no matter how long and drawn out and pointless it was (Harry) or how rambly and silly it may be (Liam) or how sad and homesick (Niall) or even just how much it could be (Louis) complaining about something that one of the other boys had done, his sisters or Mum or the management team had done. He would listen more; Zayn Malik would do his best to become the very best listener in the band.

Liam finally wore himself out a few minutes later and he fell silent with his cheek pressed into the rough material of Zayn’s jacket. The older boy’s fingers were almost absentmindedly playing with Liam’s curls at the back of his head and it was very soothing for both of them. Liam’s eyes were growing heavy, Zayn was just a few seconds from dropping back off…

“Come on, you two! We’ve got stuff to do.” It was Harry now who had returned to the bedroom and decided to hop onto the bed, flopping down behind Liam and quickly scooting so that he was spooning him. “Unless you’d rather I join you here in bed.” He looked up over Liam’s shoulder, down to where Zayn was glaring at him.

A hand was pushed into his face and Harry rolled backwards, off the bed and back onto his feet with a laugh. “Seriously, though. We’ve got things to do, so get out of bed before Louis comes in here.” He pulled a shirt over his head, a sweatshirt on over that, and some jeans and shoes.

Liam pushed his forehead into Zayn’s jacket, his curly hair tickling at the older boy’s jaw. “We should go. And you need breakfast before Niall eats it all, snuggle bear.” Zayn growled at the nickname, twisting his fingers around in the curly forest that was his bandmate and best friend’s hair. “Zaaayn, you have to get out of bed eventually.” He reached up and removed the fingers from his hair, sitting up at the same time as he latched his fingers through Zayn’s. “Get up.”

“Don’t fuss at me, Leeyum.” He teased, pulling at their intertwined hands when he got out of the bed, nearly pulling Liam out after him.

“Zayn,” Liam cooed out his name, leaning over to tickle his fingers under the older boy’s chin. “Zaynie, can we go see the Captain America film later? I think I saw that it’s playing in town.”

Zayn shrugged out of his clothes quickly, changing into something clean. “Yeah, Li. We’ll go tonight. We’ll take snacks and drinks and tell the other lads that they’re not allowed to come along.” Liam grinned as Zayn chose a shirt off the floor that had definitely been Liam’s at some point.

A warm bubble formed in Zayn’s belly as he saw the grin on his best mate’s lips and the way that Liam watched him with a glow, his hand running over his own belly. Maybe there was something, some reason, behind that warmth, but for now, Zayn just shook his head and walked out the bedroom door to get something to eat.

*

Three years passed by from that moment, that early morning wakeup call on the day when Zayn realized that he had a happy bubble of warmth when he thought of his bandmate. Since that day, he and the lads had grown a million times what they had been then, they’d all joined relationships, ended them, won awards, and sparked hundreds of rumors. Zayn had even gotten engaged, but that had fallen through about a week before.

(“Really, Zayn? A year of an engagement and now you’re breaking up with me?” “Sorry, Pez, I just – something doesn’t feel right anymore and I hate to say this, but it’s not you, it’s me. It’s completely on me.”)

Louis was still with Eleanor and they were sickeningly sweet with each other to the point that no one wanted to be alone with them. Liam had Sophia and Zayn felt pain when he saw them together. He felt actual physical chest pains when Liam smiled at his phone when Sophia had texted him or when he mentioned her in conversation.

There were only a few short days until Christmas and Zayn was in London, spending time with a few friends before he went home to see his family. The skies were cloudy and grey, the air chilly, and Zayn found himself rushing from the car to the door of the bar he was meeting his friends at.

They were already waiting at the bar with drinks in their hands when he walked in, but they weren’t where his eye first fell.

On the far side of the establishment, there was a man hunched over at the bar, his head on the surface and he looked as if he’d already had plenty to drink.

“Leeyum?” He asked tentatively, slipping his hand over the familiar shoulders. “Li, are you alright?”

Sad brown eyes looked up from the drink, settling on Zayn as though he was blurry. “Hey, mate, what’re you doing here?” He smiled sloppily and lifted his drink to his lips, only spilling half of it on the way. “It’s a great night, you know, I’m – I’m feeling great.” The shaking pout to his bottom lip proved otherwise.

Zayn glanced across the bar to his friends. They were watching him now and when they saw who he was with, they went back to their drinks. He pulled the chair out beside Liam, slipping in so that he was facing the younger boy. The drink was easy enough to wrestle away, even though it left Liam pouting even more.

“Tell me why you’re drunk.” Zayn demanded, sitting the drink on the other side of him so that Liam couldn’t reach it. “Under most circumstances, I know that you’d be getting drunk at Funky Buddha, so my main question is why you’re _here_ getting drunk?”

“Soph broke up with me. Same reason as the last time.” He put on a falsetto voice that Zayn assumed was meant to sound like Sophia. “’Do you even know what I’m saying?’ And I’m not even that upset. Like, I know that we’ve not been 100 percent great over the past few weeks, but uh… Give me my drink back.”

He tried to reach around the older boy, but Zayn blocked him by grabbing his hand. “You’ve had enough. You should go home.”

Liam batted his eyes at the older boy, tightening his grip on his hand. “Come home with me, Zayn. It’s been too long since we’ve had a movie night or a drunk, chatty night.”

One glance over at Zayn’s friends revealed to him that they seemed perfectly fine without him, but he figured that he should still go tell them that he was leaving to take care of Liam. They would understand. “Yeah, alright, Leeyum. Let’s go. Back to mine or yours?” Liam grinned and stood up, nearly pushing his seat over in his rush.

“Wait, I need to go talk to them really fast.” He nodded over at his friends, tugging Liam along behind him without waiting for any reply. When they reached his friends, they all turned to look, eyes scanning Liam’s face and then tracing down to where their joined hands. “I, uh, it was nice seeing you all, but Liam’s sort of drunk and I should take care of that before he causes some bad publicity, so I’ll see you lot around some other time.”

They all mumbled their replies which ranged from booing him to telling him to go away and take care of Liam. Just like he knew, they were alright with him ditching them in favor of the brown eyed boy behind him.

Even though Zayn hadn’t yet passed his driver’s test, he knew enough about driving to take over from Liam and get them back to the younger’s home safely.

Liam was a handsy drunk, all of the boys knew it but it didn’t stop Zayn from flushing from head to toe when the bigger boy fastened his hands around the smaller’s waist, resting his head on his chin as they headed inside. “Zennnn.” Liam slurred, breath hot and sticky against Zayn’s skin. “Zen, come to bed with me.” He licked his lips and pressed them against the exposed skin of the darker boy’s throat.

It was hard. Both pushing Liam away, staying calm, and… other things. Drunkenly Liam stumbled behind Zayn, hands cinched around the small waist, his eyes focused on the one thing that was right in front of his face when he was led up the stairs. Zayn’s bum or lack thereof. It’s not that there was no bum – there certainly was because Liam had seen it on more than one occasion – but Zayn had such a tiny bum, cute and small and Liam giggled at the thought.

When they reached the peak of the stairs, once again on stable ground (although Liam found it difficult to maneuver), Zayn turned around quickly, capturing Liam in his steady gaze, hazel eyes turned steely in the dim glow of city lights through the window. Liam caught a fleeting smile that tried to escape over his lips. “You look pretty, Z. So angely, angelic, angel manish.”

Zayn allowed his lips to twist into a half smile and his eyes melted into those warm puddles that Liam was used to looking into. “Get in bed, Li.” He stepped closer and wrapped his warm fingers around Liam’s warmer wrist, pulling him away from the top of the stairs and closer towards the bed.

“Are you gonna watch me, Zaynie?” Liam teased, peering backwards over his shoulder as his feet rolled over the ground, tripping him up every now and then. His eyes were hidden in crinkles and shadows, but Zayn knew that they were trained perfectly on him and his body was burning like there was lava in his veins.

He watched as Liam shrugged out of his jacket and kicked his shoes off into a dark corner. He reached up to tug his shirt over his head in one smooth movement, and Zayn realized that he was still very much watching these movements – absurdly lithe for someone so drunk – and he swallowed past the lump that had formed in his throat.

Liam peered back over his broad shoulders, eyes glinting in a dangerously tempting way as he teased the button of his jeans. “You’re still watching.” He turned around, popping the button through the hole and quickly pushing the denim down his legs so that he was standing in front of Zayn in only his pants.

They’d both seen far more of each other dozens of times in the past, but there was a certain electricity in the air that zipped through their hair and over their skin and it was causing their hearts to beat faster in time to a song that neither of them knew that they’d known for a long, long time.

“Leeyum,” Zayn’s voice sounded like a growl as he pushed it out past the lump in his throat that wouldn’t disappear. “What are you doing?” His heart was pounding, his hands clenched into sweaty fists at his sides, and his veins were on fire with the heat of the sun.

A breath of silence whispered between them and Liam smiled, stepping out of the pool of discarded clothing. Just as Zayn’s bum had served as a distraction to Liam only moments earlier, now Liam’s chest - toned and covered in a thin smattering of hair – was enough to make Zayn forget his name for a few moments, for just until Liam stopped right in front of him. The larger hands softly curled around the inked wrists, pulling him forward for a few steps before they stopped, Zayn’s thigh pressed between both of Liam’s and they were touching the bed.

“Leey-“ Zayn started, but one of the warm hands reached up to cover his mouth. Liam had scrunched his face down at the older boy, his other hand leaving the wrist in favor of curling around Zayn’s hip, rucking up the shirt just enough that the hot hands could make contact with skin.

Liam’s hand over his mouth was too warm, giving off the feeling of being smothered, so Zayn retaliated in the most childish way possible. His tongue darted through his lips, brushing against the palm of the other boy’s hand.

“Ew, Zayn!” Liam laughed, pulling his hand back and shaking it off. Zayn laughed as well, watching the younger boy lower his hand down to wipe it on the material of his boxers. “You licked me! I guess it’s only fair that I do this then!”

Suddenly Zayn had been flipped around and his back was being dropped onto the mattress, pillowy soft and cloudlike until a heavier weight dropped down on top of him.

Liam’s weight against his was familiar in the same way that a favorite sweater fits perfectly to every curve of his body or the way that his pillow always smelled like home no matter where in the world he was. Liam was warm and smelled like sweat and beer and something that could only be Liam. Zayn felt whole with his body on top of him.

He was pressed between Zayn’s spread thighs, his face hovering over Zayn’s and a wide grin was parting his lips, his drunken eyes bright and happy in the glow through the windows. His arms were braced on either side of Zayn’s head, but that didn’t prevent Zayn from reaching a hand up to cup the back of the back of Liam’s neck, his fingers brushing over the fuzzy forest of hair that Liam had let grow over the last few weeks. He dug his fingernails in, scratching lightly until Liam closed his eyes, moaning quietly at Zayn’s soft touches.

“Liam,” Zayn’s voice held a tone of dominance that forced Liam’s eyes open. “You should get off me and just go to sleep.” He was barely holding on to this last thread that was keeping him at a distance from Liam, the last thread that was keeping him back from crossing the line into the no-longer-just-bandmates territory.

“I don’t want to go to sleep, Zayn. I went out to drink and you stopped that, you brought me back to my place, and you don’t even know the whole story, do you?” He pushed up a little bit, moving his hips in a way that sent Zayn scrambling out from under him and up the bed just to get away from the feelings that it caused to spread through his body.

Liam followed, but this time he flopped down beside Zayn, slipping under the unmade covers of his bed. He peered over at the darker boy with a deep fascination in his eyes. Zayn sat up, crossing his legs to look down at the younger boy. Sometimes he forgot that Liam was younger than him, they all seemed the same age, they balanced each other out in the age range, and they’d all gone through the same experiences over the past few years, so it was almost easy to forget.

“What’s the whole story, Liam?” Zayn sighed the words out, his fingers finding a loose string on the duvet to fiddle with.

Liam sniffled and batted his eyelashes up at him. “Why don’t you take your shoes off and get comfortable.” It wasn’t even a suggestion; it was just a demand. “I’m not letting you leave tonight.”

Zayn leaned over the side of the bed and unfastened the laces of his boots, letting them drop down onto the floor. He stripped out of his jacket and sweater and the tshirt underneath. His jeans were a bit more difficult to remove without rustling around too much. It took so much time to get them off that he halfway expected Liam to have fallen asleep by the time he turned around.

But wide brown eyes were still watching him, examining the tan expanse of Zayn’s back, the tattoo at the nape of his neck, the dip of his spine, and every mark and detail. Even though he still had his boxers on, Zayn felt naked under Liam’s gaze. The younger patted the bed and tried to flip back the sheets for Zayn to slip into the heat that Liam had already created with his space-heater body.

“So Soph broke up with me.” Liam explained when Zayn had wiggled under the covers, rolling onto his side to face the boy who was talking. “We were at her place and we were just watching a film, she was eating popcorn and I asked for some. She was sitting in my lap, so it’s not like it would’ve been that difficult for her to hand me some of it, but she got up and dropped the bowl in my lap, spilled the popcorn everywhere. She started yelling at me, and I didn’t get why, and then she was crying and you know I don’t like when people cry.

“She said that she hated when I called her that. Apparently I’d called her snuggle bear and she always turns into a grump bear when I do that.” Zayn’s heart squeezed painfully in his chest. Snuggle bear was a term of endearment that he didn’t hear all that much anymore. “So I asked her what her problem was and she blew up on me. Do you know why?” Zayn shook his head. Liam blinked, his lips pouted ever so slightly. “Sophia always hated me calling her snuggle bear because she knew who I’d said it to first. She knew that everytime I said that I wasn’t thinking of her, I was thinking of someone else. And for a while I’d thought that it had stopped, but then that happened today.”

Once again, Zayn’s heart contracted, his bones tingled with an unknown energy. Early on in the band, Liam and Zayn had fallen together, snuggling around the XFactor house and then in the tour buses when they went on their first tour around Britain. The term snuggle bear had been accepted into their personal vocabularies after Liam tried to rouse Zayn from their snuggle naps and he’d growled and groaned. Snuggle bear was Zayn’s and Sophia had known that, Liam had known that, and what was the boy with the lovely brown eyes saying?

“Zayn.” Liam’s voice shook; his name sent shivers down Zayn’s arms and legs, his body vibrated with the letters in that particular voice; his eyelids fluttered and he swallowed past that lump that had once again appeared in his throat. “Zayn, I need you. I’ve needed you for years and years.” He rolled over, propping himself over Zayn once again, his hips aligning with Zayn’s, and his body fitting between the older boy’s legs. “I’m desperate for you.”

Liam’s palms pressed hotly against Zayn’s stubbly cheeks, thumbs brushing against his cheekbones and that’s when Zayn’s lips fell open.

“I’ve loved you since we were 18, since that winter when we were stupid and young and we played in that playground at McDonalds even though it smelled like old burgers and stinky children. I’ve loved you since you told me that you had that one dream about me even though it was just about the most innocent dream I’ve ever heard. And I’ve loved you even when I knew you didn’t love me because you loved Sophia or you loved Danielle, and I’ve loved you when we were fighting, when we were on stage and I looked at you to see that you were lost in the music or lost in the fans. Mostly I love you when it’s just you and me and we’re just being the way we are, wrapped in each other and talking and laughing and there’s nowhere in the world that I’d rather be than with you, Liam, because I love you.”

Zayn blurted his whole speech out in one long breath, his gaze fixed on Liam’s eyes, his heart beating to the same rhythm, and every hitch of Liam’s breath was a bump in his as well.

“I love you, too.” Liam confessed, his thumbs brushing over Zayn’s cheeks at the same rate as a hummingbird’s wings.

The older boy laughed, “I say all that, and all you have to say is you love me too?”

Liam grinned and ducked his head down, gently pressing his lips against Zayn’s, delving deeper and pushing his body down onto the older boy, directing their mouths with his hands pressed to Zayn’s cheeks. As their mouths and tongues moved with and against each other, Zayn grinned, his body felt light and warm and happy and feathery at the edges like he was fading into the moment as if this moment was all that mattered and that the rest of his life had been leading to this moment and maybe he’d seen too many romcoms recently, but this was what he’d been waiting nearly four years for.

They broke apart for a brief second to catch their breath, Liam panting out the words “I’m not as good with words as you are, but I’d like to show you all the ways that I love you” as Zayn reached up to pet through Liam’s hair.

“Yeah, I think I’d be fine with that.” Zayn grinned, tilting his head up to meet Liam’s lips again.

 


End file.
